Shattered Families
by Sunny Ice
Summary: After "Shattered": Lilly tries to cope with the new situation, reflecting her past, trying to see a future. /Bit angsty, but not much\\


**First off: I love the series for being so slow.** They don't usually have to burst in somewhere to stop the murderer, but just arrest them quietly. Also it is mostly focused on the cases, not shipping the main charas together.

But after seeing the very last episode I just had to do this. If I got anything wrong considering the characters: I can't watch very often.

**Disclaimer: I do not own "Cold Case" or make any profit of writing this.  
****Claimer: The way the characters are composed from this point on (aka "the storyline") is my intellectual property.**

* * *

_Lilly's POV_

I sat there with that little bundle that was my sister's baby.  
I really didn't know what to do. Most of the time the plans came to me, spontaneous and good- at least in my head. But this time...nothing.

Scotty drove us to my place.  
He carried my sister to the couch and tucked a blanket over her sleeping, deranged body. Christina looked awful. I needed to focus on the bundle in my arms, needed to do something with it.  
I followed the lead I had at the place we've found her, and got a basket from the bathroom to lay the baby inside.  
The thought that I didn't even know the name of my niece I pushed to the far side of my brain.

Seemingly hours later, Scotty and I sat at the table, staring down our coffee-mugs and waiting for a clue what to do.  
My cellphone laid in front of me, one number on the display ready to be dialed: Kate's. She had a daughter herself, she should know what to do in case the bundle wakes up. Wants something. Needs something.

I tried to think of nothing, just listening to the tick-tock of my clock.  
Why was my sister so different from me?

Why didn't she get the right way?

Why did I leave her alone?

Why didn't I help her more? I had helped so many people, so many strangers. Why couldn't I keep my own sister away from addiction?

"It's not your fault."  
"Good training, Scotty. Could say the same to you." I looked in his eyes, seeing the hurt and anger I felt myself for a woman of my family.  
"Nobody said live is easy."  
"Maybe someone dared to and didn't live long after it. Could be the solution to our next case." I chuckled bitterly.  
"There'll be a next 'our case'?" Scotty's voice was quiet. Emotionless but quiet.  
"I don't know. Right now it seems the best thing to keep at least one thing steady in my life." I brought a hand to my forehead and held back the tears I never wanted to cry. "If there's a life left after today."

I closed my eyes. The exhaustion was not only physically but mentally. I wanted to cry, to shout, to go over to my sister and demand answers of why she did that to me. I refused to imagine how hard it must be for her. Right now I could only manage to think about my problems.

"I'm an aunt." Again I laughed without humor.

Moments passed. The clock ticked. Ticked me out. Told me the time was still running, running away from me, keeping me stumbling behind.

I stood up and ripped the clock off the wall, getting a pleasure of the clacking it made on the tiled floor, the pieces flying all through the kitchen and the silence afterwards. As all laid shattered in front of me. Shattered like the world I had only yesterday. I stepped on the pieces and crushed them myself. Took control again.

"Aunt Lilly." Scotty said thoughtful it without blinking about what I did. "Has a ring to it."  
I didn't have to look at his face to notice the smirk he was sporting.  
"Then I'll better change my name."

'Aunt' sounded like the woman to get birthday-presents and baby-sit and read bedtime-stories and spend holidays with.  
Definitely not a cop with a live only around her job and the force to kill the next best man that goes on her nerves.  
I couldn't possibly do this. Not for my sanity or the baby girl's.

If on clue the bundle started to whimper and whine.  
We looked at it. Scotty stood up and lifted it from its place next to its mother.  
I looked at him blankly. Then at my sister's still sleeping form.  
I realized- Scotty was more of a sibling to me than Christina. Sounded hard, even for me. I love her, and I always will, but I don't really know her. For my partner I have to close my eyes not to know too much about him and his live. About all of my colleagues. They were more of a family than the sum of people I never could bond but shared blood with.  
I knew them and they knew me. More than I'd like them to, but still- we weren't only working together. We spent the time of daylight searching in the shadows of the past.

I turned away and clicked the torchlight on.

Hit the button to call the mother of this strange family.  
x-_-x


End file.
